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The history of what we call work

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Re: The history of what we call work

#11

Post by sillyquiet »

This is the kind of article that can only be written in rich, privileged times by rich, privileged people.

For the majority of history and or for the majority of people even today, 'work' was what you did to fulfill the most bottom of the tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - survival.

IOW, 'work' isn't some activity that exists outside of your 'real' life, it IS your life in a very literal sense.

I realize that kinda dovetails with the article's point, but I think before people get too outraged with the state of modern capitalism, a little perspective is probably in order.

Re: The history of what we call work

#12

Post by saba2008 »

agumonkey wrote: post #8
woah wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever hunted a mammoth with a spear?

Every sunday. You want some pictures ? People in the wild don't hunt elephants to survive. They survived pretty well for ages, they climb for honey, find smaller animals. It's not easy but it seems most humans are capable of it. I'm pretty sure the deal is worth it. The amount of satisfaction in apt usage of your senses and body is quite immense. I suffer daily due to insufficient stimulation (to the point I voluntee…

You miss hobby you do for entertainment with work you do for survival.

Once it's no longer choice between 'apt usage of your senses and body' and 'insufficient stimulation', but between maximum performance and starvation, it stops being fun. Just read the happiness on faces of homeless.

Re: The history of what we call work

#13

Post by sillyquiet »

'Gathering food' is not the extent of the 'work' that hunter-gatherer societies performed, which is kind of the basis of that ridiculous pop-anthropology notion of hunter-gathers working some silly low number of hours per week.

Food preparation and preservation, shelter, crafting necessaries like eating implements, food storage vessels, clothing, and weapons - these keep a member of that society (except for some of the 'elites' of those societies, naturally) busy from dusk to dawn.

This persistent myth of the low effort required to subsist as a hunter gather needs to die.

Re: The history of what we call work

#14

Post by Chris2048 »

agumonkey wrote: post #4
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #3

I have not read the book, but one line in the review caught my attention: > to value free time over money. I value free time over money, but, from what I can tell from the article, it seems that the author seems to believe that hunter/gatherer societies have a lot of “free time” on their hands. I’d suggest taking a quick shufti through some documentaries about life in hunter/gatherer societies.

There's another dimension to this. All duties aren't the same. Hunting is a duty.. but it's not the same as redoing 200x print copies for your petty boss. The former is 100% beneficial to you (a bit selfish but hey), massages your senses, strengthen your body, sharpen your skills. It's play time, somehow very freeing. The latter is dull and unless you gamify it, grinds you for no good reason.

I was of the impression that hunting requires a lot of waiting while doing nothing. That not correct?

Re: The history of what we call work

#15

Post by Chris2048 »

cwoolfe wrote: post #6

“Humankind,” Suzman writes, is apparently “not yet ready to claim its collective pension.” So why haven’t we traded rising incomes for more free time? Good question. This is part of the reason I'm in process of switching to a part-time schedule as a software engineer and parent of 3 young children. "...economists assure us that, in any case, the only long-term solution to global poverty is more economic growth." Whil…

Is "rising income(s)" relative to inflation/cost-of-goods?

As pay goes up, so does competition over (limited) resources. You can't tell from incomes alone how much better off humanity is in terms of actual resources. There are also complex arrangements such as ownership, and carbon debt that further complicate things.

"...economists assure us that, in any case, the only long-term solution to global poverty is more economic growth."

Economists are so often employed as Marketeers working on behalf of the ruling class..

Re: The history of what we call work

#16

Post by Chris2048 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #2

So I am partial to the idea of working "to do the minimum amount of work necessary to underwrite a good life." I think our culture is broken in several ways, and this sounds like a good approach. BUT, the romantisized ahistorical model of the Ju/’hoansi people (also known as !Kung San, "bushmen") the argument detailed here is based on... had it's high point in 1966 indeed, and is no longer considered reliable by anth…

> do the minimum amount of work necessary to underwrite a good life

How much health insurance would you need for a good life?

I can't help but thing everyone already does this, but some people have a different concept of "good life".

Re: The history of what we call work

#17

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

lelanthran wrote: post #10

> The chemical analysis of bones has demonstrated conclusively that early humans were not constantly teetering on the brink of starvation. On the contrary, they ate well despite having at their disposal only a few stone and wooden implements. > These findings support a surprising thesis, one that reverses everything we used to believe about the deep history of humanity. It was not the hunter-gatherers who “suffered f…

What makes you assume that dental hygiene wouldn't exist in a foraging society with primitive tools? People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE and, as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our high grain diets anyway.

Re: The history of what we call work

#18

Post by francisofascii »

sillyquiet wrote: post #13

'Gathering food' is not the extent of the 'work' that hunter-gatherer societies performed, which is kind of the basis of that ridiculous pop-anthropology notion of hunter-gathers working some silly low number of hours per week. Food preparation and preservation, shelter, crafting necessaries like eating implements, food storage vessels, clothing, and weapons - these keep a member of that society (except for some of t…

The world still has some hunter gatherer societies living today, so studying them could give us some insight into how many hours our hunter gatherer ancestors worked.

Re: The history of what we call work

#19

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Chris2048 wrote: post #14
agumonkey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another dimension to this. All duties aren't the same. Hunting is a duty.. but it's not the same as redoing 200x print copies for your petty boss. The former is 100% beneficial to you (a bit selfish but hey), massages your senses, strengthen your body, sharpen your skills. It's play time, somehow very freeing. The latter is dull and unless you gamify it, grinds you for no good reason.

I was of the impression that hunting requires a lot of waiting while doing nothing. That not correct?

Yes.

In fact, I once read a story about pygmy tribes in Africa, and their hunters would sit around smoking pot, waiting for prey.

Not sure that helps the aim, when it shows up, but hey, I guess they know how to handle their pot.

That's different from "free time," though. Veterans will tell you that combat assignments also have a lot of waiting around.

Re: The history of what we call work

#20

Post by lelanthran »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #17
lelanthran wrote: post #10

> The chemical analysis of bones has demonstrated conclusively that early humans were not constantly teetering on the brink of starvation. On the contrary, they ate well despite having at their disposal only a few stone and wooden implements. > These findings support a surprising thesis, one that reverses everything we used to believe about the deep history of humanity. It was not the hunter-gatherers who “suffered f…

What makes you assume that dental hygiene wouldn't exist in a foraging society with primitive tools? People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE and, as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our high grain diets anyway.

> People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE

So? They were using clothing as well, doesn't mean they weren't transmitting infections to one another willy-nilly.

> as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our grain righ diets anyway.

Maybe. I never heard of that theory myself. Bu regardless of diet, foragers still eat a lot of fruit with sugar. That's bad for teeth regardless of how well the tribe's toothbrush is passed down.

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